Fourth, fourth, fourth...

27.05.2012

Kevin came from 7th to 4th on the streets of Monte Carlo

Racing on the streets of Monte Carlo is always a lottery as they say. This weekend Kevin Korjus proved exactly the opposite: fourth in the solitary practice session, fourth in his qualifying session, fourth at the chequered flag. This kind of stability is a rare occurrence in Monte Carlo, but as Kevin put it he would rather prefer at least third place instead of all-fourths. Still, coming from 7th on the grid (courtesy of two qualifying groups) to fourth at the flag is about as good as it gets in Monte Carlo.

Kevin was a good prophet before the qualifying saying that Sam Bird would be hard to beat. But nobody could predict that Bird would beat the best time of another group, which had much better track conditions. Kevin was fourth in his group but could well have been even second or at least third. He was on a very quick lap during the dying minutes of the session when yellow flags were put out in the penultimate corner and Kevin had to abandon his attempt.

Kevin: "If I could have completed that lap I should have been P2. But as my team-mate was about five seconds behind me and even faster, I would probably have ended up P3. Nevertheless it would have been one better. I almost went to the wall on my second lap after coming out and lost a rhythm. It took some time to build up the pace again. All in all I should have been quick a little bit earlier."

7th on the grid meant a start from right row, which becomes inside at Turn 1. Kevin himself thought there should be no big difference, be it left or right. But certainly he put his position to a good use overtaking Nico Müller and Kevin Magnussen at the start. Magnussen then collided with Robin Frijns and hit the wall at Turn 1, putting himself out.

Frijns' retirement on lap 9 elevated Kevin to fourth but Alexander Rossi in third seemed to be too far away to catch. With free road in front of him Kevin was able to pull away from Nico Müller and closed quickly the gap to Rossi. Kevin was seemingly faster but there was no way past the American and he had to content with fourth place like in 2011.

Kevin: "Starting from seventh it was difficult to hope for better than fourth. I had better getaway than Müller and Magnussen and was fifth exiting Turn 1. Even if Magnussen hadn't crashed, I would have been in front of him. Frijns was shown black-orange flag before retiring so I would have been past him as well. First ten laps or so I didn't even use DRS, then I started to use but it made no big difference. Catching Rossi was not difficult but overtaking in Monaco is a totally different thing. I tried to push him and he made several errors, although they were not big enough to create overtaking opportunities. It was a boring race as always if you have to sit on others gearbox and follow his pace. Pity that I couldn't show my real speed today, it is always frustrating. At least I scored a handful of points but 12 is less than half of what the winner took."

Those 12 points were still useful - they doubled Kevin's points score and moved him to fifth in the championship.

Next two WSR rounds are taking place just in one week time at Spa-Francorchamps. Unlike Monaco that will be a "proper" WSR weekend with races both on Saturday and Sunday.